Category: sex

            It’s Valentine’s Day.  Well, almost. And any good Valentine’s Day will boil down to either love or sex.  Both, if you’re lucky.

            That being said, I thought I could use this time to talk about one of humanity’s favorite pastimes and how I can use it as a good writer.

            Apologize up front if this is a bit coarse and/ or graphic for your personal tastes.  Things may get a little NSFW this week.  I’ll try to use polite terminology where possible.  And where it isn’t, well… sorry.

            I’d like to ask you a question.  You don’t have to answer it here, but I’d like you to think about the answer in your mind.  It relates to my point this week.

            How many people have you had sex with?

            Lets take a moment while we all think about this.  For some folks, this is a very quick, easy to answer question.  For some others, there may be a small amount of finger-counting involved.  Maybe even a list. 

            And I’m betting a few of you may also be asking a common follow-up to this question, and that actually ties more into what I wanted to talk about.

            What are we counting as sex? 

            Are we strictly referring to intercourse, or are broader definitions at work here?  Does just being naked with someone count?  Only using your hands? Only using your mouth?

            Before you answer any of those, let me toss out a few of those coarse moments I warned you about. Some names/genders may have been changed or completely made up to protect the… well, innocent’s not the best word to use here, is it?  Let’s just say to protect the people involved.

            I knew a woman a few years back who’d been to bed a few times (and at least once on a couch) with other women, but staunchly insisted she wasn’t bisexual.  When I looked confused by this, she explained that she had no problem with other women doing things to pleasure her, she just didn’t like reciprocating.  Therefore, as she saw it, she wasn’t bi.

            I also had another friend who was married, but slept around a bit.  Thing is, he honestly believed he wasn’t cheating because he always, well, concluded things outside, to be polite.  He never said it in quite so many words, but after a while it became clear that was his definition of being faithful.  And since he was kind of blatant about it, I have to wonder if his wife agreed with that definition.

            And then there’s a whole school of thought in some more conservative areas of the U.S. that…  well, that sex involving a rear entry (again, to be polite) doesn’t “count” as actual sex. Both parties can do this a hundred times and, with no shame, call themselves virgins in the eyes of the Lord. 

            No, I’m dead serious.  This is an actual belief.  Google “God’s loophole.”  But you probably shouldn’t do it at work.

            For some of you, these views and beliefs might make perfect sense.  Or maybe some do and some don’t.  Or maybe you’re openly laughing at some of the mental gymnastics these folks are doing to rationalize things.

            So what’s the point of all this, besides getting the ranty blog banned from a few dozen work servers?

            Let me explain with an example.

            There’s a pretty mediocre movie called What’s Your Number?starring Anna Faris.  Anna plays Ally, a woman who sees nothing wrong with her sexual history until she reads a magazine article that points out she’s had almost double the average number of lovers for a woman her age before getting married.  At which point she becomes terrified that she may have already missed “the one,” and vows to revisit past exes to figure out who said man (or woman) is. 

            This is barely fifteen minutes of the movie, but it’s told us a bunch of stuff about Ally. It gives us a good sense of her views on sex–that she isn’t a prude, but also isn’t exactly sex-crazed.  We know she’s a bit concerned with how other people may view her, and that she’s a bit flexible about her orientation (or was, at one point).  We know she sometimes makes poor choices, like when she says she’s done sleeping with random people and then almost immediately ends up in bed with her ex-boss.  We also know she’s a bit impressionable—she feels fine about her sex life until a magazine article implies she should feel otherwise.

            So this also confirms these magazines only make you feel bad about yourself.

            Just like all of us, how my characters define, describe, and sometimes rationalize sex says something about them.  It invades their language, their behaviors, and the way they act and react to other characters.  There was a very funny moment on Orphan Black when suburban housewife Allison snidely tells her caseworker “I don’t believe I’ve ever done ‘the nasty.’”  And even if you’ve never seen the show that one response tells you a few things about Allison.

            Is it sex?  Making love?  A quickie?  A nooner?  Something a little more graphic or coarse?   There are still lots of people who wait for marriage before having sex.  Some folks only want to do it with people they’re in a serious relationship with, while others are fine with jumping someone on the first date.  And then there’s one night stands, friends with benefits, and a bunch of other situations that all boil down to sex.  Plus, views change over time and depending on the situation, too.  

            And any one of these things will tell a reader something about a character.

            Now, here’s one last  thing to keep in mind.  Just because I know Wakko never sleeps with anyone on the first date doesn’t mean I need to show a second date.  Or even a first one.  I’m not saying every short story, novel, or screenplay should have a sex scene so I can develop the characters more.   But, as I mentioned above, if I know how my character would react to such things, there’s a good chance it’s going to give me a better sense of how they’ll speak and act. 

            So go forth this weekend and have fun.  And take notes.  For writing purposes.

            And now, after all the fun sexy talk, here comes the big let down.  As usual.

            Probably going to miss next week because I have a deadline coming up and I really want to get this draft done so I have time to do one, possibly two, more before this book’s due.  So next week is all focus.

            In the meantime, if there’s a particular topic I could blab on about that interests you, please mention it in the comments below.  I like taking requests.  Makes me feel like I’m helping.

            If not, two weeks from now I’ll probably end up talking about spelling again.

            Okay, I think I’m pretty much caught up with things on my end.  Even have the next four or five weeks planned out.  If there’s something you’d like me to babble on about, though, please drop me a note down in the comments.  There’s a good chance I can fit it into my semi-themed schedule before the end of the year.

            That’s what I’m saying at the moment, anyway.

            Speaking of which…

            As I’ve said once or thrice before, good dialogue is everything.  We learn so much subtle stuff from characters by what they say and how they say it.  There are dozens of words for police, for teachers, for bosses, for jobs, and more.  Does Phoebe call Wakko her boyfriend, her partner, her man, or her boy toy?  Does Wakko think of her as his lover, his bitch, his piece of ass, his significant other, or his friend with benefits?  No matter what their relationship is, the words they each use to describe it tells us something about both of them. 

            One term that comes up a lot in criticism is on the nose dialogue.  I’ve seen it tossed out to beginners numerous times in feedback, but usually without any explanation.  I saw it a lot when I used to read for screenplay contests (and wrote it on many, many forms).

            At its very simplest, on the nose dialogue is when my character is saying precisely what they’re thinking with no subtlety to it whatsoever.  It’s the difference between “Do you want to come up for a cup of coffee?” and “Would you like to have sexual relations in my living room now?”  There’s no inference or implications, no innuendoes or layered meanings—no subtlety at all.  It’s dialogue stating the obvious, and I’ve mentioned a few times before how bad it is to state the obvious. 

            If I have on the nose dialogue, it usually strips away some layers of character, too.  How people avoid saying things is just as revealing as what they’re trying not to say.  If they don’t have those nuances and habits in their voices, they start sounding like robots.  Or cartoon characters. 

            Not the good kind of cartoon characters.

            In real life, people beat around the bush. We’re coy.  We feel each other out, in a verbal sense, and avoid saying things directly.  We use metaphors and similes and white lies and more.

            Here’s a couple things I should be doing to make sure my dialogue doesn’t get too on the nose…

            Casual English—I’ve mentioned before the difference between written English and spoken dialogue.  When dialogue follows all the rules of grammar it starts to get wooden and lose a lot of its flavor.  Sometimes there’s a point to this.  We’ve been taught to expect that aliens, androids, and super-geniuses tend to have very good grammar in stories.

            For the vast majority of us, though, we get a bit loose when we speak.  We use contractions and mismatch verbs and numbers.  It just happens.  Look up above where I said “Here’s a couple of things I should be doing…”  When we don’t, dialogue becomes rigid, and that’s just a short shuffle from being wooden.

            Jargon—Somewhat related to the last point.  The idea of slang has been around for a long time.  Bram Stoker talked about it in Draculaover a century ago, and it’s a safe bet printers developed their own special terminology in the workplace less than a decade after Guttenberg made his printing press.  Everyone has their own set of words and terms that gets used within their particular group, and these words spill out into most of their conversations.  In other words, doctors speak like doctors, engineers talk like engineers, and sci-fi geeks speak like Dothraki.  When my characters lose these basic subtleties, their dialogue starts getting on the nose.

            Humor—Many years back I was on a road trip with a friend and we got horribly lost on the way to meet up with some folks.  It was all back roads and single-lane highways.  When we finally found a sign I could use to locate our position, I discovered we’d somehow got about a hundred miles off-course in about an hour and a half.  No chance we’d meet up with our friends on time.  Possibly no chance of finding a gas station, leaving us stranded in the middle of nowhere.  He saw my expression as I checked the map again and asked what was wrong.

            “Well, the bad news is we’re lost.  The good news is we’re making excellent time.”

            We make jokes at the worst possible times.  Office reviews.  Breakups.  Traffic accidents.  Courtrooms.  Funerals.  It’s just the way we’re wired.  The more serious the situation, the more imperative that release valve is for us.  In fact, we tend to be suspicious or uneasy around people who never crack jokes.  Not everyone and not at every moment, but when there’s no joking at all… it just feels wrong.

            Flirting—Similar to the above, this is another fact of human nature.  We show affection for one another.  We all flirt with friends and lovers and potential lovers, sometimes even at extremely inopportune times.  It’s not always serious, it can take many forms, but that little bit of playfulness and innuendo is present in most casual dialogue exchanges. 

            Like joking, it’s impossible to flirt with on the nose dialogue because it requires subtlety and implied meanings.  Flirting without subtlety generally comes across as propositioning, which gives a very different tone to things.  If no one in my story flirts with anyone on any level, there might be something to consider there.

            Not Using Names—There’s an old mnemonic trick of repeating someone’s name after you meet them.  Great for real life, not so great in fiction. 

            If I use someone’s name every time I speak to them, it starts to sound a little mechanical.  Yeah, even nicknames.  Yeah, even in crowds. We just don’t use names that often.  Think of your last few conversations and think about how often names get used.  Watch your favorite movie and see how often people address each other by name.

            Show Don’t Tell—You’ve probably heard a version of this before, but I’m talking about it in a slightly different way here.  Yeah, it’s clumsy if I’m just using my narrative to describe what’s happening.  It’s even worse if my characters are describing what’s happening.  Especially when they have absolutely no reason for doing it. 

            To be clear, I’m not talking about when they explain what they’re doing (say, trying to perform CPR or maybe cook dinner), but when they’re just speaking their actions aloud.  If you’ve ever heard an old radio-show where the actors had to depend on just dialogue with no visuals, you know what this sounds like.

            This kind of clumsy dialogue immediately tells the reader that I’m not picturing this scene at all.  For screenwriters, this kind of thing is almost guaranteed to get my script tossed in the big pile on the left, because I’m clearly not thinking about what’s on screen.

            Talk with other characters—This may sound silly, but if someone’s talking, they should be talking with someone else.  Nine times out of ten, if a character’s talking to themselves, it’s on the nose dialogue.  All those monologues about stress, long ethical debates, Yakko psyching himself up, Dot trying to figure out how to get past the thirteen Hydra agents… odds are every bit of that is on the nose dialogue.

            I also shouldn’t try to get around this with a “sounding board” character.  Talking is communication, which means it has to be a two-way street.  If I’ve got someone who serves no purpose except to be the other person in the room while someone thinks out loud, then they’re not really serving any purpose. 

            And that’s six things I should be doing with my dialogue.  I don’t need to do all of them, but if I’m not doing any of them… well…  Maybe my dialogue’s a little on the nose.  Or maybe a lot on the nose.

            Next week, I want to talk about inflation.

            Until then, go write.

            Pop culture reference.  Very funny video.  Even Spielberg liked it.

            Well, in the way of my people, I’m spending the day before Valentine’s Day back at the dentist.  New teeth.  That’s weird.

            Which made me think about love. Mostly, how much I love painkillers…

            But you don’t want to hear me whining again…

            A lot of folks were horrified or—depending on how your particular ship sails—vindicated a few weeks back when J.K. Rowling announced that she probably shouldn’t’ve had Ron and Hermione get together as a couple at the end of the Harry Potter books.  Definitely not as a “they lived happily ever after” couple.  In retrospect, she felt she’d forced the relationship and it didn’t feel believable.

            Now, granted, she’d been slowly pushing things that way for four books, so it’s not like this came out of nowhere.  But I can kind of see what she’s saying.  It made for some interesting articles and assumptions online.  And also gave some validation to my Harry and Luna Lovegood theory…

            Everyone loves a good romance because we all love the idea that there’s someone out there who’s a fantastic match for us.  A soulmate, if you will.  It’s a relatable idea.  And when we can relate to something, as readers or audience members, we can believe it.

            However…how often have you been reading a book or watching a movie when suddenly, out of nowhere, two of the characters started professing their mad love for each other?  Few things can sink a story faster than a pasted-on love interest, because none of us like fake emotions.  It makes people roll their eyes while reading books and it makes movie audiences laugh.

            So, let’s revisit a few simple rules that can help make a love for the ages…

            The First Rule of Love —  Like I just said, love needs real emotions, and I can’t have real emotions without real people.  And real people, oddly enough, act in realistic ways.  I’m not saying rational ways, because love is one of the most irrational things most of us will ever encounter in our lives.  If my characters are real, though, they’re going to have needs, desires, plans,and tastes.  And it’ll stand out if they make choices that go against those traits.  Yes, opposites attract—they even have a lot of fun together—but if we’re talking about real emotions, odds are these two are going to have more in common than not. 

            Even then, how far and how fast they take things should be consistent.  Some folks live in the moment.  Others plan every day in half hour increments.  People can be confident or nervous, experienced or awkward.  Some people are tearing each others clothes off half an hour after they meet, while for some the huge moment might be that tentative kiss on the third date (if it’s really a date, because that first one was just coffee—not a date!).  

            Simply put, my characters need to be believable if their relationship is going to be believeable.

            The Second Rule of Love  —  If you’ve ever been in a situation where friends are offering advice and pushing you to say something, you know the real result is it makes you want to get away from the object of your potential affection.  Nobody likes feeling forced into something, and we don’t like to see other people forced into things.  That’s just human nature.

            Now, for the record, “other people” includes me, the writer.  Characters need their own motivations.  I can’t just have them do things for the convenience of the story.  If I’ve based my whole story around the mercenary and the archeologist saving the villagers out of mutual respect for each other, then I need a real reason for them to get together (as mentioned in the First Rule). 

            And no, the reason can’t be something like “because they need to face the gargoyle lord as a unified couple in chapter fifteen.”  It also can’t be “I need a sex scene to hold people’s attention.”  If this is the basis of Wakko and Phoebe’s relationship… well, they probably won’t be celebrating any major anniveraries.  Not with each other, anyway…

            To sum up– People get together because they want to get together, not because other people think they should be together.

            The Third Rule of Love – This one could actually count as real-world advice.  Don’t confuse sex with love.  There are lots of points in a story where it might be completely acceptable for two characters to have sex.  We’re all mature adults here (not counting you two), and I’m willing to bet most of us have had sex with someone we weren’t madly in love with at the moment… or at any time later.  Sex is fun.  It’s a stress-reliever.  It lets you not think about other things.  Heck, it can even keep you warm.

            Sex doesn’t always translate to love in stories any more than in the real world, though.  If two characters fall into bed (or up against a wall, in a closet, out in the woods…), I need to make sure I’m clear what it means for both of them.  Forcing something casual into something serious will just read as forced (refer to the Second Rule).

            So… sex and love are not the same thing.

            The Fourth Rule of Love— This is the tough one, because Hollywood keeps trying to insist otherwise.  How often have you watched a movie where you can immediately spot “the love interest” as he or she is introduced?  It doesn’t matter what kind of film it is or what’s going on, it’s easy to pick out him/ her the first time we see them.  In screenwriting, this moment’s often called the “meet-cute.”

            Y’see, Timmy, a romance doesn’t always fit in a story.   Someone could be wounded, fighting for their life, or so scared they’re an inch away from a heart attack.  Maybe they’re already in a relationship with someone else. 

            Forcing something in these situations also poses the risk of making one or both characters very unlikeable.  There was a very odd movie a few years back where the main character develops feelings for his brother’s fiance over a long weekend—and they both act on them!  It made it hard to feel sympathetic toward either of them.  I also read a manuscript once where the two protagonists start feeling urges toward each other while they’re searching for the woman’s abducted daughter.  Not years-back abducted, mind you—four hours ago abducted and possibly at great risk.  But, wow, doesn’t this private detective have a nice smile and great arms…?

            In ten words or less—sometimes it’s just not going to happen.

            So there are the rules.  Now go forth and spread the love.

            Where appropriate for your age group, of course.

            Next week, I might just say something quick, if I can find the right words.

            Until then, go write.

            Anyway…

            I’ve got plans, so I won’t be here for long, but I wanted to take a moment to address a common issue I see with love stories, whether they’re the main thrust of the story or just a subplot. 

            The weak triangle.

            I’ve mentioned triangles here before.  They’re an easy form of conflict where a character (A) has to choose between two options (B and C).  They come in a variety of flavors, but for today’s little rant I’m going to talk about one of the most common ones—the romantic triangle.

            We’ve all seen romantic triangles before.  Wakko (A) has been lusting after the head cheerleader (B), but then comes to realize that his best friend Phoebe (C) is really the person he should be with.  Dot (A) is all set for her reliable-and-boring boyfriend (B) to propose on their trip to Europe…until she meets the bohemian artist (C) who just moved in across the hall.

            Sounds familiar, yes?

            Here’s something else that may sound familiar.  In how many versions of this story is that head cheerleader (and please pardon me for being blunt) a cruel, wretched bitch?  Not just in a “mean girls” sense, but an honestly reprehensible human being?  She isn’t just someone you wouldn’t want to date, she’s someone you wouldn’t even want to talk to.

            And yet… Wakko’s infatuated with her.  He’s totally blind to her faults, no matter how many times he’s smacked in the face with them.

            Now, granted, in this scenario Wakko’s a high school boy.  High school boys are notorious for overlooking things, especially when it comes to high school girls.  It’s a hormone thing.

            But we’ve seen this situation reversed, too, haven’t we?  Where Dot is smitten with the quarterback—an arrogant jock whose dream is to start up a Hitler Youth program at their school because he thinks it will look good on his college applications.  And we all know girls mature faster than boys soooo… what’s her excuse?

            Really, there’s a dozen versions of my B character (B referring to the point of the triangle, not the sophistication of my writing).  The Bridezilla.  The condescending executive.  The fixer.  The person who’s nice to you but rude to the waiter.  The all-too plain Jane.  The Mister-so-Right-it’s-kind-of-creepy.  Everyone reading this can probably name a dozen examples from a dozen different stories, yes?

            Now, in this particular triangle scenario (and all the variations of it), the big problem is the actual integrity of the A-B line of the triangle.  When B is such an overall undesirable person, we can’t understand why that relationship even exists in the first place.  Why would Wakko be involved with someone like her?  What does Dot possibly see in him?  Surely either of them could do better, right?

            See the problem here?  If it’s that obvious to all of you that my character is with the wrong person, then said character looks kind of stupid, don’t they?  Maybe really stupid, depending on how much of an ass I’ve made B look like.

            More to the point, going with C isn’t much of a surprise in this scenario, is it?  It’s the only sane choice.  If they don’t go with C, they look even dumber than they do for being with B.  To paraphrase Eddie Izzard, when the choice is cake or death, we’re not really surprised that most people choose the cake.

            If I’m using a triangle for conflict, especially a romantic triangle, B and C both have to be valid choices.  If they’re not, then my triangle doesn’t have any strength to it.  It’s weak, and that means my conflict is weak.  And if my plot or subplot is based on that conflict… well…

            Mind you, B doesn’t need to be perfect.  He or she should have pros and cons, like any good characters.  But there need to be enough pros—even if they’re shallow ones—that they somehow outweigh the cons.  As I mentioned above, there are times that a pretty face or really great sex can override a lot of negative qualities in a person.  So can a lot of money or material goods.  But these things can only make up for so much.  At the end of the day, the relationship between A and B has to be a solid one.  Not rock solid, but it has to take some weight.

            Making this decision between B and C needs to cause some turmoil for A.  Not gut-wrenching, years-of-therapy turmoil, but it should require a bit of effort.  It has to be a challenge.

            At least, more of a challenge than picking cake or death off the dessert menu.

            Next time… well, it’s that time of year again.  It’s contest season, and I wanted to offer a few tips to the screenplay-centric folks so you can make sure that your script goes down screaming in a ball of flames and never has a chance.

            Until then… well, okay, tonight your mind shouldn’t be on writing.

            But tomorrow, go write.